“Indefinitely?” Brinton’s vagina wailed at the thought.
He grinned, then softly kissed her forehead. “Oh, sweetheart, I hope not. But how about until after the article is wrapped? Whatever you need to feel comfortable, because lying will consume you. I would know.”
Hands inching down her lower back, Jamie thumbed her shorts’ soft waistband.
She buried her face into his firm chest.
“So, you’re suggesting we take things slow?” she asked, voice muffled by his soft cotton T-shirt. He smelled as good as ever.
Brinton feared cold turkey was the only option. Her mother had long warned her of All or Nothing Thinking, a cognitive distortion plaguing the anxious mind. The only way to counter it was to question it.
The question was clear: what if there was a universe where Brinton could be simultaneously successfulandhappy? She craved that so intensely.
Jamie flashed that real smile that made her knees go all soupy.
“Mh-hmm,” he murmured. “Besides, there’s plenty of other ways to…enjoy each other.”
He nuzzled Brinton’s cheek, wrapping her in his scent. His safety.
Jamie’s hands hovered a millimeter above her butt. It was enough to make her press into him in anticipation.
“And there’s a lot to enjoy,” he said, laughing darkly. He pulled his hands back up to her mid-back.
The little scoundrel was teasing her. She soaked up every second.
Jamie’s plan was also good. She trusted him because, unlike Eli, who cataloged her flaws with a magnifying glass angled beneath the sun, Jamie appreciated all the kinks and burrs that made her a work-in-progress.
In fact, she felt renewed each time they touched.
Suddenly, they seemed too far apart.
She licked her lips. “First order of business: you should kiss me now.”
Smiling softly, Jamie’s hands migrated to the hollows of her cheekbones. He angled her face up to meet his.
“Bee, you’re reading my mind.”
This time, their kiss was softer, sweeter. A physical manifestation of their sacred pact to each other, exhilarating and joyful and worth every hard-won ounce of yearning.
His fingertips firmly gripped the back of her neck, which she decided was a new favorite. Need tightened in her belly as his hands fisted her braids. The delicious tension sparked fireworks behind her eyes.
Unexpectedly, he pulled away. His eyes were shaded with curiosity.
“I think you got a little something on you,” he said. “Can I?—”
Still a little dizzy, she nodded.
Curling his hand behind the shell of her ear, he caressed her so tenderly. Morse code from his fingertips straight to her heart. After denying herself the security of intimacy and gift of pleasure for so long, she felt light enough to levitate.
He pulled his hand away, fingers glossy and perfumed with rosemary and peppermint.
Uneasiness rooted in Brinton’s stomach. “Um—it’s oil. I was doing my hair before you got here.”
A Black woman’s hair was sacred. The art of it didn’t needexplanation or require an apology. But there was a critical point in a new relationship where a Black woman decided when it was safe to let that person see behind the curated veneer. Without criticism of her Amazon lace fronts, oversized satin bonnets, or arsenal of oil sheen and edge control jammed into bloated bathroom cabinets.
When she was twenty-two, Brinton dated a guy—also Black, although that proved to be of little consequence—who asked her to sleep on a musty futon in his living room. So she wouldn’t “grease up” his thousand-dollar Frette cotton percale sheets with “all the shit y’all pile in your hair.”
Was Jamie part of the trusted few?
